The stories behind the buildings, statues and other points of interest that make Manhattan fascinating.

Monday, June 23, 2014

The Lost Calumet Club--No. 267 Fifth Avenue

The combined mansions sit behind a heavy iron fence in 1902. photo by Byron Company, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWQ9TVQ1&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

In 1879, the year the Calumet Club was organized, the
neighborhood of Fifth Avenue and 29th Street was among the most
exclusive in Manhattan.Quiet and
refined, it was marked by the brownstone mansions of Manhattan’s elite.At the northeast corner, in No. 267 lived the
family of Hartman Kuhn; while next door at No. 269 lived Henry Delafield and
his daughter, Frances Henrietta.Delefield’s wife, Mary Parish, had died in the house in 1870, just five
years after their marriage.

Membership in at least one exclusive men’s club was de rigueur for wealthy gentlemen.Originally simply social organizations; as
more clubs sprouted they specialized.There
were athletic clubs like the New York Yacht Club and the Racquet Club; political clubs;
clubs that focused on professions or interests; and university clubs.

The Calumet Club began with just 15 members whose intentions
were to establish a place where art and literature could be discussed.A decade later The New York Times remembered “When
the club was established not very long ago there was an intellectual element in
its organization which promised to make it popular among artists and literary
men. Its very name was chosen by a man
of important literary attainments, and was intended to signify that democracy
within its walls between exponents of the purely intellectual and the purely
money-bag portions of society such as wine, pipes, and love have ever been
known to establish.”

From its 15 original members the roles rapidly swelled and
the club quickly outgrew its leased house on 13th Street.On April 12, 1885 The
Times said “The club is one of the most successful that has ever been organized
in this city.”At the time the club’s
membership limit of 300 had nearly been reached. It began looking for a commodious
clubhouse that would reflect the social status of its members. And it soon found one--the two
brick-and-brownstone homes at Nos. 267 and 269 Fifth Avenue.

The Calumet Club announced that it would move into the
combined homes “in all probability” after May 1, 1886.The news that the Calumet would have a Fifth
Avenue address caused a stir among a few of the other high-class clubs.Two months later The New York Times wrote “Already
several members have resigned from the St. Nicholas and have gone over to the
Calumet Club.The Calumet Club has announced
its intention of removing to Fifth-avenue next May, when its present lease
expires, and there is no doubt that if the St. Nicholas Club is not on the
avenue by that time many members will resign from the St. Nicholas in favor of
the Calumet.”

As predicted, the two mansions were internally combined and
all was in order for the May 1886 move-in.On April 18, 1886 The Times reported “So well regulated are club matters
that it is as easy for a club to move as for—well, say Barnum’s circus, which
flits like the traditional Arab.The
membership of the Calumet has largely increased since the decision to move to
the Avenue.”

The grand, combined mansions would provide the necessary
amenities expected in a gentleman’s club—smoking rooms, billiard rooms,
library, dining areas, for instance.Upstairs
were both sleeping rooms and suites for resident and non-resident
members.

Heavy canvas awnings shielded the interiors from the heat and damaging effects of direct sunlight -- photo from the collection of the New York Public Library

Although King’s
Handbook of New York City rather unfairly said in 1892, “The Calumet is a
club for the men whom the limit of membership and the long waiting list keep
out of the Union;” there was no doubt regarding its high-end membership.Potential members were nominated by a
standing member, then voted upon by a Governing Committee.An initiation fee of $170 was required and
dues were $65 per year for resident members—a total of about $3,500 today.

Each summer the families of wealthy New Yorkers escaped the
heat by heading to Newport, Bar Harbor, or country estates.Their mansions were shuttered for three
months and the furniture and artwork shrouded against dust.During the summer weekdays the millionaire
businessmen, bankers and attorneys therefore stayed at their clubs.Along with Calumet Club members who used the
rooms during the summer months, there were also unmarried members who lived
permanently here.

The move to Fifth Avenue had an unintended
repercussion.Certain sons of millionaires,
attracted by the address, sought and were awarded memberships.Their shallow interests diluted the scholarly
tone set by the original group of artists and writers.Little by little those veteran members walked away.

On December 20, 1889 The Times lamented “the influences of
Fifth-avenue have been, it is said, steadily in the ascendant, and the habitués
of the Astor-place publishers have gradually removed themselves from their now
haughty companions and have gone where more congenial associates are
possible.Thus came a limited divorce
between the purely intellectual and the purely financial cliques in the
organization.”

But all traces of the original club were not yet gone.“Nevertheless, there has remained a faint
aroma of the author’s pipes in the smoking room of the club, and some of the
older members look back with undisguised regret to the time when these circulators
of thought were wont to meet.They tell
that then there was conversation concerning other things besides pools and
London burlesque actresses, and that even in the card room, when a bluff was
successful, could be heard quotations from Horace instead of condemnations of
Hoyle.”

On January 16, 1896 the club was rocked when it was
discovered that several of the members’ rooms had been burglarized.Clubmen across the city united in the belief
that either club employees were involved in the crime; or were simply incompetent.The New-York Tribune, on January 19, said
that clubmen believed “some of the employes at the Calumet Club deserved severe
blame for the robbery at the club on Thursday night, and that the
superintendent of the club could not escape censure for the evident lack of
fidelity among the attendants.It was
declared that no thief could invade the rooms of a club if the attendants were
watchful and sober, and that it is the business of a club superintendent to
engage only servants who are vouched for as entirely trustworthy.”

The morning after the theft, police arrested two men for
stabbing Frank Boylan in Battery Park.In the course of their investigation they found property stolen from
the Calumet, wrapped in a monogrammed club towel, stashed in a public lavatory there.

Clarence Andrews was among the members robbed.He had recently taken his apartment on the
second floor here and The Sun remarked that “he was quite a heavy loser” in the
theft.However, as “most of the jewelry
was recovered shortly afterward,” the newspaper said “Mr. Andrews paid no more
attention to it.”

Not, at least, for a while.

Well known in music and art circles both in New York and
Europe, Andrews also held memberships in the Union League, Players’, Racquet
Club, Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht Club, and the American Fine Arts Society.About two weeks after the burglary, he
returned to his apartment to find he had been robbed once again.The Sun reported “The value of jewelry taken
he estimates at about $450.”That figure
would amount to a little over $12,000 today.But it was not merely the monetary value of the jewelry that concerned
Andrews.“I lost many family souvenirs
that can never be replaced,” he said.

Now tenant and landlord became engaged in a heated
tug-of-war.“After the second robbery
Mr. Andrews contended that the club was responsible for his loss, as it had
allowed careless methods to prevail in its management of things.The managers of the club took a widely
different view of the matter, and refused to make any reparation for the losses
which he had sustained.”Finally an
incensed Clarence Andrews packed his things and moved two blocks north to No.
489 Fifth Avenue.“His reasons for so
doing, he said yesterday, were simply because he felt that he did not have any
protection while he stayed there and that in the event of another robbery he
could expect nothing in return from the club,” reported The Sun.

The club managers promptly requested that he pay the rent on
the suite for the rest of the year, since he had promised to stay that
long.The heated dispute went on for
nearly a year until, in December 1896, the Calumet Club dropped Andrews from
its membership roles.He never paid the
rent, by the way.

In 1904 the Calumet Club was a pivotal part of the shocking
scandal that rocked New York society.Wealthy wine merchant Frank de Peyster Hall had long been a member.He was President of the F. de Peyster Hall
Company and lived nearby at No. 113 West 28th Street in what The Evening World called
“luxurious surroundings.”Hall held
memberships in other exclusive men’s clubs including the St. Anthony Club and the New
York Yacht.

The unmarried millionaire sometimes stayed overnight at the Calumet
Club and nighttime activities resulted in his being asked to resign.Like all men’s clubs, young boys were
employed as bellboys to handle messages and tend to the incidental needs of the
members.When club officers heard of
the “gossip of bellboys” the youths were questioned.Club attendants said that “over a long period
of time” the “boys were afraid to go to Hall’s room while he was living in the
club.”

This led to an investigation by discreet private
detectives.A young detective was placed
in the Calumet Club as a bellboy.“On
the strength of his evidence the manager of the detective agency, according to
the club officials, went to Mr. Hall, handed him a resignation blank and asked
him to fill it in,” reported The Evening World some months later.

The sensational facts of Hall's “disgraceful practices” were
kept from the public and Hall’s resignation was reported to be due to his
unhappiness with the way the club was managed.But little by little rumors leaked out.By September 1904 his business partners heard the story and he was
forced to resign.

On October 5, in an effort to control the “ostracism both
socially and in business circles” he was enduring, Frank De Peyster Hall sued
Alfred H. Bond, president of the Calumet Club, and George A. Carmack, secretary
of the New York Yacht Club. Charging the men with slander, he sued each for
$50,000.

Hall’s attempt to save face backfired.As attorneys prepared their cases, newspapers
were told that at least “seven witnesses, all of whom are boys” would
testify.To make matters worse, Bond
sent a message to Hall’s lawyers saying, according to The Evening World, “that
he desired no further publicity, but that if the suit were pressed he would lay
the evidence in his possession before the District-Attorney, which the object
of beginning criminal proceedings.”

Frank De Peyster Hall, once eminently successful and
respected, had his back to the wall.Pederasty in 1904 was not only a despicable crime; it was damning.
If his case went to trial, Hall would be shamed and ruined.

On October 10 The Evening World reported “It was Hall’s
custom to take his breakfast in his room every morning at 8.45 o’clock.Malvina Morse, the negro maid, took the
breakfast to the room at the usual hour to-day.The door was slightly ajar.She
knocked, but receiving no reply she entered.

“The sight that greeted her eyes caused her to drop the tray
and rush into the passage with a scream of horror.Hall was lying dead on the floor alongside
the bed.There was a bullet wound in his
head and a pistol clasped in his right hand.”

The disgraced club member had taken the only way out he could conceive of.

Well-dressed spectators line the club's 29th Street side as policemen head west to Fifth Avenue to join The Police Parade on June 1, 1897. photo by Byron Company, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWQ9TVQ1&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

As had been the case with Clarence Andrews, the management
of the club did not always see eye-to-eye with its members.In 1884 Fleming Tuckerman loaned the club a
portrait of Benjamin Franklin by artist Benjamin West.It was a family heirloom, purchased from the
West family by an uncle and inherited by Tuckerman from his father.By 1908 the portrait had hung in a conspicuous
spot in the club for more than two decades.And now Tuckerman requested the painting back.

The club management reminded Tuckerman that the portrait was
a gift.Tuckerman reminded the club that
it was on loan.The issue ended up in
court with Tuckerman demanding the return of his painting or $4,000.The club held its ground and testified that
the Benjamin Franklin portrait was property of the Calumet Club; a gift from a
generous member—Fleming Tuckerman.On
January 8, 1909 Tuckerman won his case and regained possession of the
painting.One assumes his previously-enjoyable
evenings in the clubhouse came to an end.

By 1914 the area around the Calumet Club that had been fashionably residential in 1886 was overwhelmed by commerce.On June 3 the members voted “almost
unanimously in favor of moving the club to a location further uptown,” according
to the New-York Tribune.The newspaper
noted “In the last few years many of its neighbors have moved in the uptown
direction, which fact has influenced many Calumet members to urge a similar
course.”

The “similar course” resulted in the club’s purchase of the
Henry B. Hollins mansion at No. 12 West 56th Street.The Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide
reported on the sale on June 27, 1914 and one week later it announced that the
old clubhouse had been subleased.“Alterations
are to be made for business purposes,” it said.

The proud clubhouse briefly became home to the Home Relief
Shop.Here donated items were resold for
charity.“The objects of the Shop are
three: To afford opportunity to the poor to buy warm winter clothing at a
nominal sum; to give employment to women in the sewing rooms, where the worn
garments are refurbished and donated materials made up, and to give direct
relief to the poor through the charitable work of St. Mark’s Hospital,”
explained The Evening World on December 18, 1914.

The lush vines have been stripped away and signs announce the impending demolition in 1915 -- photograph from the collection of the New York Public Library

But the tide of commerce would soon overtake the Calumet
Club building.Four months later, on
April 17, 1915, The Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide reported that the
property had been sold for $600,000.“The
new owners will erect an eleven-story structure for their own occupancy.”Within a year the combined mansions at Nos.
267 and 269 Fifth Avenue were gone; replaced by an office building.

The Edwardian skyscraper known as 267 Fifth Avenue still stands, albeit with an altered base. photograph from the collection of the New York Public Library